[motoman99]

Hi all. Ive been a member on here for a few weeks now but this is my first post, so go easy on me. Ive been building a HCPC from a few spare bits I had lying arround and decided to go for the ATI 4550 card after reading some posts on here and some other sites. My problem is this. No matter what source I use DVD, BlueRay or media files I can only get the card to output 2 channel PCM over HDMI to my Sony STRDG820. Im using Vista 64 bit o/s and I have the Realtek ATI HDMI drivers installed. I have the ATI HDMI device showing in vista sound manager but the only option I get in the configuration menu is 2 channel stereo. I Know I wont get full dolby digital output with this card but I should be able to get up to 7.1 PCM output according to the ATI specs. Anybody any ideas? Ive not got much hair left after this one

[Stephen Neal]

There's a thread on this over at avsforum.com

I don't have a 4550 yet - but apparently :

1. The new release of Catalyst includes the ATI HDMI Audio drivers and you don't need the Realtek ATI HDMI audio drivers.

2. You need to disable the ATI Event Manager (which will also stop Catalyst Hotkeys working?)

3. You may have issues requiring a reboot if you switch away from your HTPC on your amp.

Have a look in the home theater PC bit of avsforum...

[motoman99]

Cheers mate. I will have a read over there and see if I can find anything out. I will post the results here if I change anything.

[motoman99]

Well, Ive tried everything from the avsforum thread. I actualy ended up worse than when I started. The latest hotfix drivers from ATI stopped my card from showing any video when playing bluray in PowerDVD, and the audio was still 2 channel.Looks like Im stuck using my reciever to encode the 2.0 signal to 5.1 until ATI release the 8.11 driver that is roumered to fix these problems. I forgot to mention that my card is a Saphire HD4550. Dont know if this makes any difference. Anybody any more ideas?

[Dan20]

I fitted the Gigabyte version of this card yesterday. From installation using the supplied drivers (CD) video was good but the (ancient) Microsoft HD Audio driver gave significant multi-channel problems. Applying the hotfix from the web-site broke the blu-ray video playback, other video was OK and did nothing for fixing the audio problems. Rolling back the video driver got blu ray working again. I downloaded the ATI HD Audio driver from the Realtek site and this fixed the audio for me so overall is now working well.
First impressions of this card are very favourable, it is silent (no fan) and gives excellent performance for the price (£42). Auto overdrive on the graphics gives a good performance boost. This wont be enough for serious gamers but gives more capability than I would have expected for the money. I use it in a HTPC and for this use I think it will be excellent.
I can't really offer any advice to the OP on the audio problem he still has, I am using both video and audio through HDMI into an Onkyo 875.